When she lowered her hand from her forehead, she spotted Jubal Brown watching from beneath his hat brim. "Were you eavesdropping?"
Grinning, he raised both hands. "Will you give me a beating if I say yes?"
Fox tried to remember exactly what she and Peaches had said. Nothing specific that she could recall.
"Don't worry," he said, his grin widening. "I was dozing until a minute ago. All I heard was something about cookies. Are you going to bake cookies?" He sounded hopeful.
"You could have heard every word for all I care." A shrug punctuated the lie. She wished Hanratty would come back so she could get supper over with and crawl into her tent. Her energy seemed lowest at altitude.
"You don't like me much, do you?"
Fox glanced at him, but didn't answer.
"Is it because I'm a Confederate?"
"I told you. The war isn't real to me."
"Are you mad because the gold got stolen? That was Hanratty's fault, not mine."
Fox rocked back on her heels and examined him. Long, lean, and good-looking in a rough unpolished way. Two days of not shaving had given him a thin beard that made him appear a bit older. Fox had to remind herself he was a killer with the morals of a slug.
"I'd like you better if you complained less and helped out more."
"You'd like me better if I was rich and had the manners of a duke." Settling back against the saddle, he tugged his hat brim back down over his eyes. " 'Course if I was a rich duke, I'd stop watching your butt and go find me a fancy lady wearing silk and dripping perfume."
"Did I mention coarse and vulgar?" Fox snapped. "I'd like you marginally better if you displayed even a hint of manners."
"Like you're accustomed to fine manners."
Grinding her teeth together, Fox flicked a glance at Tanner's tent, then cut the potatoes into small pieces and dropped them and the onions into a pot of spring water that she hung over the fire. Maybe she didn't know chapter and verse about manners, but she could appreciate someone who did.
"Do you think Tanner's pa really got himself kidnapped?"
Fox's head jerked up in surprise. Brown's face was covered by his hat and she couldn't see his expression. "Why on earth would you ask such a peculiar question?"
"Maybe we're enduring all this aggravation for a whole different reason altogether."
"Such as?" She had no idea what he was implying.
"Tanner's a Union man, ain't he?"
She considered his comment and the direction it pointed. "Forget it. If Tanner wanted to send money to the Union, it would have been closer to take the gold to San Francisco. He could have been there and back by now."
"Maybe there's some reason he has to take the gold to Denver."
"That doesn't make sense."
"And it doesn't make sense that kidnappers would hold his pa for three fricking months. If I was the kidnapper I wouldn't mess with some old guy for three months. I'd shoot him and be done with it."
Fox glanced toward Tanner's tent and lowered her voice. "I hope not, but maybe that's what's happened. Tanner will pay the ransom but his father is dead."
Jubal Brown thumbed up his hat. "If the old man is dead, then why wait three months for the money? If it was me, I'd send a telegram saying I had the old man, wire fifty thousand within a week or the old man dies. And I'd shoot him anyway. But the whole thing would be over in a week. Not strung out for months."
Fox wished he hadn't put this idea in her head. Biting her lips, she frowned at Tanner's tent, seeing him sitting inside studying the rock he'd brought back. Would he use his father to cover some other reason for taking the gold to Denver?
"Well, it's not you who kidnapped Tanner's father. Obviously, the men who did kidnap him have their reasons for doing it this way. It's probably safer for them than putting their names in a telegram."
Brown made a sound of disgust. "They wouldn't use their real names."
"Even so." She was glad to spot Hanratty riding toward camp with a small deer draped over his horse's rump. "I have no reason to disbelieve what Tanner's told us. As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of it."
But she wondered. And all through supper, she watched Tanner holding his platter of hot venison apart from the rest of them, asking herself if he might have lied about his father being kidnapped.
Along about midnight, she stopped staring at the peak of her tent and decided Brown's suspicion was nonsense. Matthew Tanner was an honorable man. But what if ?
His reason spoke to his character. If he was pushing to reach Denver to rescue his father, then he was admirable, a devoted son, a man of loyalty whom one could trust. If he had lied about his father and the gold was for the war effort or some other secretive thing, then Tanner was a liar, a deceiver, and without conscience about using his father to gain undeserved sympathy.
That was not possible.
Shifting on her side, she heaved a sigh. She longed for Matthew Tanner's touch, burned for him. But he was avoiding her. She didn't like it much, but the thought occurred to her that she might have to take matters into her own hands.
The next few days were uneventful. By now crossing creeks and ascending or descending treacherous slopes had become as routine as setting up camp in the evenings. It was cold on the peaks, warmer in the valleys. One day a heavy morning snow turned into cold rain by afternoon and they rode hunched over, grinding their teeth and enduring the misery. But by and large they had been lucky with weather.
Hanratty and Brown complained of boredom and the sameness of peaks, valleys, and overarching sky. Tanner suspected the two would have been lost in half a day as they clearly lacked the keen eye for landmarks that Fox possessed.
So far, Fox had stumbled only once, leading them to the edge of a deep, steep-sided gully that the animals couldn't cross. As a result, they'd lost several hours to the necessity of riding around the gully. Otherwise, she had been on target. In the morning she generally announced where they were heading and how long she estimated it would take, and then she unerringly led them to the campsite she'd selected.
Tanner would have liked to ask how long it had been since she'd previously taken the direct route, and what landmarks did she key off of. Did she remember the route in total, or did she recall the terrain as the bowls and peaks unrolled before her?
But Peaches's words had stuck in his mind. He admired Fox enough that he didn't wish to take any advantage that might cause her grief at the end of the journey.
So he'd kept his distance, curtly turning aside any approach she made. That wasn't easy because it wasn't what he wanted.
Right now he sat beside the campfire, brooding and watching her brush out her hair with the same intensity as he'd watched her wash her face and throat. Every evening she went through these woman routines, and every evening they fascinated him. Before she crawled into her bedroll, she'd rub something on her face and then she'd sniff her bedtime gloves with a pinched expression before she put them on and settled down for sleep.
That was another thing he wished he could ask. Why did she wear gloves to sleep in?
"Mr. Tanner?" Peaches asked for the second time. "Would you be interested in a game of checkers?"
The other men had their backs to Fox and didn't see her brushing out long wavy lengths of auburn hair. But Tanner understood that Peaches knew what he was watching.
"Not tonight, thanks." Standing, he stretched his neck against his hand and examined the sky in the fading light. There were no clouds, just a slice of moon. "I think I'll take one of the lanterns to my tent and read a while."
Spring rains often came at night and they had decided to accept the aggravation of setting up the tents rather than risk waking up soaking wet.
Crawling inside, he lay on top of his bedroll with the lantern positioned above his shoulder, his head propped on a couple of the bank bags. He'd just opened the book he was reading when Fox shouted outside his tent flap.
"Get out of that tent!"
He burst outside
in one fluid motion, his gun ready in his hand. "What's happened?" A swift glance around the site didn't reveal anything amiss. The men drinking coffee at the fire smiled. Smirked was more like it. Except for Peaches, who watched Fox with a frown.
The last glow of sunlight lit her face, still rosy from a wash with cold spring water. Tonight her eyes were more gray than blue, but throwing off sparks like two rocks struck together.
"I've had enough. We need to talk." She scowled and jerked her thumb toward the men at the camp-fire. "Not around them. In private." Without waiting for a response, she stomped off toward a stand of juniper.
Tanner noticed the sway of her poncho skimming the top of her fanny, but her long braid wasn't moving much. This meant that she held her neck rigid, which in turn meant that she was angry.
Not liking the situation, he followed her around the juniper until the men at the fire were blocked from sight. And he reminded himself that Fox's anger was often puffed up to conceal a streak of vulnerability.
"What's on your mind?"
She didn't let him finish the question before she was up on tiptoe, hands on hips, speaking inches from his face.
"You can ignore me if you want to, and I don't give a damn. But it's eating my liver that I got myself shot in your service and you don't have the decency to inquire how I'm feeling or healing." She pointed a finger at her earlobe.
"Mr. Hernandez has kept me informed." It looked to him as if her earlobe was healing nicely, the edges knitting together. There was a small half circle of missing lobe, but the wound seemed on the mend.
"Didn't it occur to you that maybe I'd like to know that you were at least a little interested in the welfare of an employee who gave up an earlobe in an effort to recover your gold?"
Referring to herself as an employee startled him as he didn't think of her that way. "Mr. Hernandez assures me that he's been dosing you with preventatives against fever and further that he believes you're now beyond the danger point. He also reports there is no sign of infection. Is that true?"
She narrowed flashing eyes. "Yes," she said finally. "But my ear could have gotten infected and I could have died from fever."
"But you didn't."
"No thanks to any concern on your part!"
He saw it now. She'd induced the anger so he wouldn't guess that his apparent indifference cut her. As the worst of the storm seemed to have passed, he cautiously removed a cigar from his waistcoat pocket and offered it to her. After a hesitation she accepted, and they smoked in silence, gazing at the stars appearing overhead.
"I apologize for not seeming to care about the loss of your earlobe," Tanner said, exhaling a stream of smoke. "I assure you that was and is not the case. I'm deeply grateful and indebted to you for your valor and sacrifice in recovering the gold. And I'm sorry that you got shot."
"Are you poking fun at me?" she asked suspiciously.
"Not at all." He felt her waiting. Felt the closeness and night heat of her body. She had replaited her hair, but the image of her brush sweeping through long silky strands stayed in his mind. He frowned and gazed into the distance. "I've been keeping to myself because it seems best for all concerned." That was the question she wanted answered, but damn it, men were not good at this sort of thing.
"I'd say 'all concerned' means you and me," she said after a minute. "So why is it 'best' that we ignore each other?"
He examined the glowing end of his cigar, glad it was dark. "I'm attracted to you, Fox." He cleared his throat. "Once or twice I've had a fancy that perhaps you might be attracted to me, too." She didn't confirm or deny his guess. "It strikes me that mistakes could happen. Circumstances might lead to a situation that couldn't end well."
"I guess I know what you're referring to," she said, speaking slowly.
"Then you'll understand why I've kept some distance rather than make an uncomfortable situation more difficult."
She shifted and he could have sworn that he smelled bacon. It seemed a strange time of night for the men at the campfire to be frying bacon, but they must have been.
"I enjoyed that night in the outlaws' camp," she said finally. "Well, not all of it. Not getting my earlobe shot off, or freezing, but you understand what I mean. Don't you?"
He did. In years to come when he thought of this journey, that was one of the nights he would remember. He hoped by then he'd remember things about that night other than feeling the heat of her body curving into his, other than the warm sweet scent of her skin next to his nose.
"I liked being with you," she said in a voice so low that he had to lean to hear her. "Other than Peaches, there aren't many men I've laughed with."
The comment seemed odd and almost sad until it occurred to Tanner that he hadn't laughed with many women. Over time he had concluded that in general men and women were not amused by the same things.
But that night in the outlaw camp he and Fox had laughed together and shared an intimacy that he'd been reluctant to admit.
"I liked being with you, too," he said. "That's the problem."
They stood shoulder to shoulder, smoking, looking into the darkness as if there were something to see out there. Even if there had been, Tanner wouldn't have noticed. His awareness was centered on the woman standing beside him, wondering where this talk was leading.
"Let me make sure I understand. You're keeping to yourself because talking to me and being near me would what?"
This was the most awkward conversation he'd had. He wasn't accustomed to plainspoken women. On the one hand, plainspoken was refreshing. On the other hand, with subtlety and nuance, one didn't have to state the truth in bald terms.
"I don't want to spend this whole journey speculating about taking you to bed," he said, angry that she'd made him say it straight out.
"And when you talk to me, that's what you think about?" She sounded surprised and delighted.
Frowning, he tried to see her expression through the shadows. If he had spoken this bluntly to any other woman, she would have slapped his face and stormed away, never to speak to him again.
"This is not an appropriate conversation, and I apologize."
"Oh for God's sake." Fox dropped her cigar and ground it out under her boot heel. "We're making progress, so don't go hiding behind manners before we finish this."
People did hide behind manners, she was right. Thinking about it, he put out his cigar, too, then turned and clasped her shoulders.
"Listen to me, Fox. I think about you all the time, and that isn't good."
"Why not?"
"It could lead to taking advantage. That wouldn't be fair to you as I can't offer you a future." How blunt should he be? Knots ran up his jaw. "Our worlds are too different." She was smart. He didn't have to state that she wouldn't fit in society, wouldn't enjoy the restrictions his class placed on women.
"I know that."
His fingers tightened on her shoulders. "All I can offer is a trip-long romp." He let the stark words hang for a moment. "That is not honorable or right, and it isn't fair to you."
It crossed his mind that less than a foot separated them. If she stepped forward, she would be in his arms. Instantly his stomach tightened.
She stiffened beneath his hands on her shoulders. "First, I know what my future is going to be and that's what I want, so you don't have to worry about me and the future. You aren't part of my plans. Second, you don't get to decide what's fair or right for me, Tanner. That's my decision. Third, you're offering a chance to scratch a temporary itch. Well, maybe I'm feeling that itch, too."
It took a moment, but it dawned on him that Fox was rejecting his argument. In fact, she appeared to encourage the idea of a temporary liaison. "Good Lord," he said softly, straining to see the pale oval of her face.
"I'll say it right out," she whispered. "I wouldn't mind you pursuing me."
He had to make certain that she understood. "If we embark on" What could he call it? "A liaison, we both have to accept that it ends when we arrive in Denver. I can't of
fer anything permanent."
"Your daddy would never approve."
He heard the smile in her voice but didn't share it. "No, I guess he wouldn't." He knew damned well his father wouldn't approve of Fox. That was not his primary reason for a temporary liaison, but it was there. "We can enjoy each other for the duration of the journey if you're agreeable, but that's all."
Surely there could be no misunderstanding. But he sounded cold and calculating, the way he imagined a womanizing cad operated. He was telling her that he was willing to use her on this trip, then toss her away when he reached Denver. Disgust rose in his throat and he dropped his hands from her shoulders and turned aside.
"This isn't right. Not for either of us." It was a struggle, but he managed to do the honorable thing, say the right words. "Let's forget this conversation and return to the fire."
"Now don't be a damned fool. We've just about got this deal negotiated. What about Hanratty and Brown? We're too small a party for them not to notice what's going on. That has to be addressed."
A laugh rolled out of his chest before he could stop it. That she believed they were negotiating the terms of an affair astonished him, until he realized that's exactly what they were doing. "There is absolutely no one like you," he said softly.
She stepped backward. "Don't go sweet-talking me until we get this worked out."
"Hanratty and Brown," he repeated, smiling in the darkness. "I don't give a damn what they think."
"Peaches will know, too," she said, dragging the words out.
"He won't approve. Does that upset you?" he asked curiously.
"Peaches is worried that I'll get hurt."
"I'm worried about that, too."
"Don't flatter yourself, mister."
Tanner imagined he saw her chin come up.
"Maybe it's you who'll get your heart broken, not me."
In an odd way, he thought, startled, she might be right. Not only was Fox a woman he could never have, but she represented a life Tanner would never know. Total independence and the freedom to live as she pleased, go where she pleased, do as she pleased without answering to anyone.
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